LibGuides: Black History Month 2022: RECOMMENDED MATERIALS

FICTION

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
ISBN: 1984848690
The most anticipated fantasy of 2021. In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice. Get ready for battle. Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs. But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity-and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death. Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki-near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat. Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be-not even Deka herself. The start of a bold and immersive fantasy series for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther.
The Last Suspicious Holdout by Ladee Hubbard
ISBN: 0062979094
The critically acclaimed author of The Rib King returns with an eagerly anticipated collection of interlocking short stories including the title story written exclusively for this volume, that explore relationships between friends, family and strangers in a Black neighborhood over fifteen years The twelve gripping tales In The Last Suspicious Holdout, the new story collection by award-winning author Ladee Hubbard, deftly chronicle poignant moments in the lives of an African American community located in a "sliver of southern suburbia." Spanning from 1992 to 2007, the stories represent a period during which the Black middle-class expanded while stories of "welfare Queens," "crack babies," and "super predators" abounded in the media. In "False Cognates," a formerly incarcerated attorney struggles with raising the tuition to keep his troubled son in an elite private school. In "There He Go," a young girl whose mother moves constantly clings to a picture of the grandfather she doesn't know but invents stories of his greatness. Characters spotlighted in one story reappear in another, providing a stunning testament to the enduring resilience of Black people as they navigate the "post-racial" period The Last Suspicious Holdout so vividly portrays.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
ISBN: 0446675504
This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author. When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
ISBN: 0593337697
A searing and compassionate new novel about a young Black nurse's shocking discovery and burning quest for justice in post-segregation Alabama, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench. Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

FILMS

Films available on Kanopy:

I Am Not Your Negro - Kanopy

An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends--Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript.

Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and flood of rich archival material. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.

The Color of Medicine - Kanopy

A documentary capturing the history of medical training of African-Americans at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. Dr. Earle U. Robinson Jr., a 2nd generation physician and alumnus, whose father was one of the first 27 interns to graduate from Homer G. Phillips, shares his personal story and the significance of the Homer G. Phillips hospital's valuable part in African-American history.

If you have a library card issued by McCarthy Library, you also have access available to all the collections at the Napa County Library. This means that in addition to the digital resources available to you through the college resources, you are also able to access the digital collections available through the county library system. Some highlights are:

Hoopla Digital

Streaming movies, TV shows, music, eBooks, and eAudiobooks.

Kanopy

More than 30,000 feature films, documentaries, foreign language, and training videos, including the Great Courses, the Frontline series, and international films.

NON-FICTION

Farming While Black by Leah Penniman; Karen Washington (Foreword by)
ISBN: 1603587616
In 1920, 14 percent of all land-owning US farmers were black. Today less than 2 percent of farms are controlled by black people--a loss of over 14 million acres and the result of discrimination and dispossession. While farm management is among the whitest of professions, farm labor is predominantly brown and exploited, and people of color disproportionately live in "food apartheid" neighborhoods and suffer from diet-related illness. The system is built on stolen land and stolen labor and needs a redesign. Farming While Black is the first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture.
James Baldwin: Collected Essays (LOA #98) by James Baldwin; Toni Morrison (Editor)
ISBN: 9781883011529
James Baldwin was a uniquely prophetic voice in American letters. His brilliant and provocative essays made him the literary voice of the Civil Rights Era, and they continue to speak with powerful urgency to us today, whether in the swirling debate over the Black Lives Matter movement or in the words of Raoul Peck's documentary 'I Am Not Your Negro.' Edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the Library of America's Collected Essays is the most comprehensive gathering of Baldwin's nonfiction ever published.
Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington
ISBN: 9780767915472
From the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America's shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers-and indeed the whole medical establishment-with such deep distrust.
Seize the Time by Bobby Seale
ISBN: 093312130X
Sieze The Time is Bobby Seale's, a longtime activist and co-founder of The Black Panther Party, riveting first-person account on the evolution of The Party as a national organization.

POETRY

Appalachian Elegy by Bell Hooks
ISBN: 9780813136691
In Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks continues her work as an imagist of life's harsh realities in a collection of poems inspired by her childhood in the isolated hills and hidden hollows of Kentucky. At once meditative, confessional, and political, this poignant volume draws the reader deep into the experience of living in Appalachia. Touching on such topics as the marginalization of its people and the environmental degradation it has suffered over the years, hooks's poetry quietly elegizes the slow loss of an identity while also celebrating that which is constant, firmly rooted in a place that is no longer whole.
Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory by James Cagney
ISBN: 173233403X
The poems in BLACK STEEL MAGNOLIAS IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS THEORY interrogate identity, family, loneliness, and the expectations of masculinity. Using dreams, blues, and a chorus of voices, this collection of poems examines the complexities of intimacy for an adopted person trying to find balance between two families--one rattled by age and illness; the other, holding space for a son that doesn't exist.
Heaven Is All Goodbyes by Tongo Eisen-Martin
ISBN: 0872867455
Shortlisted for the 2018 Griffin International Poetry Prize 2018 American Book Award Winner 2018 PEN Oakland Award Winner Winner of the 2018 California Book Award for Poetry 2018 NCIBA Poetry Book of the Year "Eisen-Martin's impeccable collection is a crucial document of this time."--Publishers Weekly, starred review This is truly revolutionary poetry. A vortex of images, observations, inspired leaps and free associations spills forth from a choir living in oppression and transience. Moments of political and spiritual convergence, surrealism and blunt materiality, gangsterism and its husk, revolution and perseverance, are captured in the music of metaphor and pure intention.
A Swarm of Bees in High Court by Tonya M. Foster
ISBN: 0988539918
"A SWARM OF BEES IN HIGH COURT is, among other things, Tonya Foster's 'attempt to create biography of a place,' specifically Harlem in the 21st century, where certain dreams are indefinitely deferred. From bedroom intimacies behind closed blinds to public displays of affection and disaffection, Foster's poetry contemplates unspoken bonds of culture, geography, and race that bring couples and communities together, along with the terrible strains that can tear them apart."—Harryette Mullen
Unearth [the Flowers] by Thea Matthews; Jessie Carver (Editor)
ISBN: 0999889516
An electrifying letter to family, country, and self, Unearth [The Flowers] is an essential collection, relentless in its journey through stages of grief and healing while celebrating life. Each poem is an anthem for resiliency, a testament to survival, a triumph over the stigmatized terror that pervades the everyday. Thea Matthews's first full-length collection of poetry details a mind, body, and flower at the intersection of the personal and the political.